Bronwyn Winfield podcast: ‘I’m not doing that again’: Husband was set on keeping the home

The husband of missing mother-of-two Bronwyn Winfield was adamant: He was not going to lose another house to a failed marriage, says a former workmate.

Ian ‘Scruffy’ Gluyas. Picture: Liam Mendes

The husband of missing mother of two Bronwyn Winfield allegedly told a workmate as the ­relationship crumbled that he was not going to lose another house after two previous failed marriages.

Bricklayer Jon Winfield was adamant the family home he built himself at Sandstone Crescent at Lennox Head on the NSW far north coast would not be sold from under him, says ­retired concreter Ian Gluyas, known in the town as Scruffy.

“When things were starting to get a little bit rocky, they were still living as a family unit, but they were not a happy couple,” Mr Gluyas tells the investigative podcast Bronwyn.

“And he said, ‘This is my last house, Scruffy’. He said ‘I’ve ­already had to sell the other two. I’m not doing that again. I’m not selling this place … to square things up’. He’s gone, ‘That’s not happening. It’s not on’.”

Mr Gluyas also revealed he warned Bronwyn after she separated from her husband not to return to the family home, seeing danger on the horizon.

Bronwyn had left Sandstone Crescent with her two daughters in 1993 when the relationship broke down, but in the weeks that followed, lawyers, relatives and friends were urging her to move back in to safeguard her property rights and so she could save money.

Mr Gluyas, who had noticed a controlling side to Jon, had a gut feeling she shouldn’t do it.

“I said, ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Bronwyn’,” Mr Gluyas said. “I said, ‘Because he’s going to lose it. He’s going to peak out’. And he was going to not be happy’. And that’s what happened.”

The podcast series is delving deep into the mystery of Ms Winfield’s 1993 disappearance from Lennox Head that has thrown a shadow over the town and its long-term residents for the past three decades. She left behind two daughters she doted on, aged 10 and five.

Mr Winfield has always ­denied any wrongdoing. He says he provided police a statement in 1998, confirmed that version to ­detectives again in 2010, and stands by it today.

No charges have ever been laid over Bronwyn’s disappearance.

After meeting and socialising with the Winfields through a children’s playgroup, Mr Gluyas managed large concreting jobs that Jon worked on.

The two families spent time together at each other’s homes and at barbecues beside the tea-tree stained waters of Lake Ainsworth.

Our new podcast is delving into the 31-year mystery of Bronwyn Winfield’s disappearance.

Jon was a hardworking and reliable tradesman who kept sites clean and organised, someone “you could respect and recommend to other people”, Mr Gluyas said. The two men shared rides to and from job sites, with Mr Gluyas dropping by the Winfields’ house in Sandstone Crescent to pick Jon up and drive him home again.

“Good looking rooster, surfed. Nice family. Didn’t drink much, if at all,” he said.

The Winfield and Gluyas children went to playgroup together and got on well. “And then the more I got to know him and started to see some parts of his character that I thought was a bit strange, I sort of found there was another side to him,” Mr Gluyas said.

“I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist, but I picked up on the vibe very quickly. He just thought I was Scruffy the concreter. I noticed a side, which I didn’t think was too good, where he was very anal about his house, a cleanliness disorder thing, when someone’s got OCD or whatever it is. When he spoke at home, the kids weren’t like a normal family, you know what I mean? Because he was very sort of controlling most of the time.”

Mr Gluyas says he warned workmates Jon wasn’t like them, even if he appeared to be on the surface. “Because of the nature of the crew that I had working for me, I actually went to the trouble of warning them one day when Jon wasn’t about,” he said.

“I said, ‘Be very careful about Jon. Still waters run deep’. I said, ‘He actually hates people that smoke drugs’, which they all practically did. I was about the only one that didn’t.

“And I said, ‘He’ll pretend to be one of you lot’. But I said, ‘He’s down on a whole heap of things as far as drinking, drugs. He’s very prudish. Very controlling with his missus’.”

Mr Gluyas’s wife Maria became friendly with Bronwyn, saying in a 1998 police statement they would see each other daily. They became a closer after Bronwyn separated from her husband on March 21, 1993. Bronwyn had moved out of the family home with her daughters and into a townhouse in Byron St, a few doors from the Gluyases.

Jon then went to live at his brother Peter’s home in Sydney while he did some work, leaving the family home in Lennox empty.

“While they were living in the flat, they all appeared to be much happier and Bronwyn didn’t appear to be suffering from the stress like when she was living with Jon,” Ms Gluyas told police.

“Bronwyn would often tell me that Jon was ringing her nightly from Sydney and she thought that he was checking up on her.

“Bronwyn also told me that Jon had told her that he would do anything he had to do to keep the house and that he had already lost two houses to other women and was not about to lose this one.”

Mr Gluyas said Bronwyn would “spill out her heart” at the kitchen table after dropping over for a coffee with his wife.

“She said to Maria at the time, ‘People have no idea of the depth of his anger, when he gets angry’.”

In one visit in May 1993, Bronwyn shared advice from a solicitor in Lismore that she had the right to return to the family home, where Mr Winfield had changed the locks. Mr Gluyas was at home at the time and overheard, prompting him to warn Bronwyn against going back.

“The solicitor had said, ‘The property is yours, he’s the one that has to get out’. And ‘Go there with a locksmith, change the locks and take possession of it’. And ‘You’re within the law’.

“That might be perfectly right to do and legally right to do. But they’re not putting a 24-hour f..king security guard on your f..king door when you do it.”

Bronwyn moved back into the Sandstone Crescent home on Friday, May 14, 1993. Hearing this, Jon flew up from Sydney on Sunday, May 16, the night Bronwyn, 31, tucked her daughters into bed then disappeared.

Do you know something about this case? Contact Hedley Thomas confidentially at [e-mail]